Mock on: Job's Banter

Aside from the endless suffering and loss and pain in Job, I gotta admit the man is pretty quick-witted. He has some really fancy banter with his friends.

"my brothers are as undependable as intermittent streams" - 6:15... ouch


He even did the whole "look at my face, am I lying to you?" on 6:28-30


He told his wife she was talking like a foolish woman in Chapter 2. Granted she was.


He asked God this: "Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard?" 7:12 whoa Job, that's a valid point, you are not the Loch Ness monster.


"How long will you say such things?" 8:2 - OT for "you are rambling"


"Your words are a blustering wind." 8:2 -Bildad really told him.


"Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh? Can reeds thrive without water?" 8:11 .. no, no, of course not.


Example of something unreliable: a spider web. You can't lean on it, it will give way. Genius. 8:14-15


"But a witless man can no more become wise than a wild donkey's colt can be born a man." 11:12... I'm gonna take your word for that one, Zophar. Good analogy.


"But I have a mind as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Who does not know all these things?" 12:3... Job says "thank you, captain obvious."


Job calls his friends "worthless physicians" 13:4.... that's offensive. I mean, going through all that schooling and being worthless. I'd be way offended.


"if only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom." 13:5 those are fighting words, Job.


You listen to me, and you listen good - 13:17


Eliphaz said "would a wise man answer with empty notions or fill his belly with the hot east wind?" 15:2..... okay, I'm lost. I'm gonna have to google that one.


"When will you end these speeches? Be sensible, and then we can talk." - Bildad, Ch 18


And Job coined the phrase "mock on" in Ch. 21


Seriously, this has been such a humbling book to re-read. Sure, it makes me scratch my head and think "hmm what??!!" but in the grand scheme of things, I feel Job's human emotions, his pain, yet he still praises God and His power.


One of my very favorite passages in the Bible is Job 19:25-27

I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!

After all that loss, Job's heart yearns to see the living God.
I can only hope to be that faithful of a servant.